The term companion cases refers to a group of two or more cases which are consolidated by an appellate court while on appeal and are decided together because they concern one or more common legal issues. Depending on the facts of each case, the court may be able to achieve a final resolution of all such cases (e.g., by affirming summary judgment in all of them), or it may have to remand one or more of them for further proceedings such as a trial. In general, one of the companion cases comes first on the case caption and serves as the title of the consolidated opinion that resolves the group of cases.
Appellate courts do not always have to consolidate cases in order to resolve several pending cases with a common legal issue. A related method is to "grant and hold", meaning that while a "lead" case presenting an increasingly common issue is being briefed and argued, all other similar cases that come into the same appellate court are granted review but then are put on hold pending the outcome of the lead case. Once the lead case is decided, the other cases are promptly remanded to the lower courts from which they originated, with directions on how to resolve them in light of the opinion issued in the lead case.
In some instances, companion cases with similar—but not identical—fact patterns are decided with different outcomes, allowing the court to establish fine dividing lines between outcomes revolving on the specific differences in the facts of each case.
United States appellate procedure involves the rules and regulations for filing appeals in state courts and federal courts. The nature of an appeal can vary greatly depending on the type of case and the rules of the court in the jurisdiction where the case was prosecuted. There are many types of standard of review for appeals, such as de novo and abuse of discretion. However, most appeals begin when a party files a petition for review to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision.
A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of the world, court systems are divided into at least three levels: the trial court, which initially hears cases and reviews evidence and testimony to determine the facts of the case; at least one intermediate appellate court; and a supreme court which primarily reviews the decisions of the intermediate courts, often on a discretionary basis. A particular court system's supreme court is its highest appellate court. Appellate courts nationwide can operate under varying rules.
In law, common law is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions.
A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case relevant to a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems often view precedent as binding or persuasive, while civil law systems do not. Common-law systems aim for similar facts to yield similar and predictable outcomes, and observing precedent when making decisions is the mechanism to achieve that goal. Common-law precedent is a third kind of law, on equal footing with statutory law and subordinate legislation in UK parlance – or regulatory law. The principle by which judges are bound to precedents is known as stare decisis.
A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties against one or more parties in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used with respect to a civil action brought by a plaintiff who requests a legal remedy or equitable remedy from a court. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint or else risk default judgment. If the plaintiff is successful, judgment is entered in favor of the defendant. A variety of court orders may be issued in connection with or as part of the judgment to enforce a right, award damages or restitution, or impose a temporary or permanent injunction to prevent an act or compel an act. A declaratory judgment may be issued to prevent future legal disputes.
Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of a legal case that have been resolved by courts or similar tribunals. These past decisions are called "case law", or precedent. Stare decisis—a Latin phrase meaning "let the decision stand"—is the principle by which judges are bound to such past decisions, drawing on established judicial authority to formulate their positions.
The Court of Cassation is one of the four courts of last resort in France. It has jurisdiction over all civil and criminal matters triable in the judicial system; it is the supreme court of appeal in these cases. It has jurisdiction to review the law, as well as to certify questions of law, to determine miscarriages of justice. The Court is located in the Palace of Justice in the 1st arrondissement of Paris.
A brief is a written legal document used in various legal adversarial systems that is presented to a court arguing why one party to a particular case should prevail.
The Erie doctrine is a fundamental legal doctrine of civil procedure in the United States which mandates that a federal court called upon to resolve a dispute not directly implicating a federal question must apply state substantive law.
Ratio decidendi is a Latin phrase meaning "the reason" or "the rationale for the decision". The ratio decidendi is "the point in a case that determines the judgement" or "the principle that the case establishes".
Remand is when higher courts send cases back to lower courts for further action. In the law of the United States, appellate courts remand cases to district courts for actions such as a new trial. Federal appellate courts, including the Supreme Court, have the power to "remand [a] cause [sic] and ... require such further proceedings to be had as may be just under the circumstances." This includes the power to make summary "grant, vacate and remand" (GVR) orders.
Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC, was a series of cases heard and adjudicated by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals from 2003 to 2010. A civilian activist group, Prometheus Radio Project, challenged new media ownership rules put forth by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) during its 2002 Biennial Review. The majority ruled 2-1 to throw out the attempt by the FCC to raise the limits of cross-ownership of media, and determined that a "diversity index" used by the FCC to weigh cross-ownership employed several "irrational assumptions and inconsistencies." Many elements were remanded to be fixed or better explained to assure they were in the public interest. The dissenting opinion by Chief Judge Anthony Joseph Scirica contested that the majority were simply employing their own assumptions, and that the FCC should be allowed to use its mandated expertise and make adjustments as necessary. The Court also ruled that section 202 (h) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 did not contain a "deregulatory presumption," and that the burden rested with those seeking to modify or eliminate the existing rules.
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. The procedures of the Court are governed by the U.S. Constitution, various federal statutes, and its own internal rules. Since 1869, the Court has consisted of one chief justice and eight associate justices. Justices are nominated by the president, and with the advice and consent (confirmation) of the U.S. Senate, appointed to the Court by the president. Once appointed, justices have lifetime tenure unless they resign, retire, or are removed from office.
In United States law, multidistrict litigation (MDL) refers to a special federal legal procedure designed to speed the process of handling complex cases, such as air disaster litigation or complex product liability suits.
The Texas Courts of Appeals are part of the Texas judicial system. In Texas, all cases appealed from district and county courts, criminal and civil, go to one of the fourteen intermediate courts of appeals, with one exception: death penalty cases. The latter are taken directly to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the court of last resort for criminal matters in the State of Texas. The highest court for civil and juvenile matters is the Texas Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court (SCOTX) and the Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) each have nine members per the Texas Constitution, the sizes of the intermediate courts of appeals are set by statute and vary greatly, depending on historical case filings and so that the justices on each court can timely adjudicate the volume of cases regularly before them. The total number of intermediate appellate court seats currently stands at 80, ranging from three, four, six, seven, nine, and thirteen (Dallas) per court.
In United States federal courts, a circuit split occurs when two or more different circuit courts of appeals provide conflicting rulings on the same legal issue. The existence of a circuit split is one of the factors that the Supreme Court of the United States considers when deciding whether to grant review of a case. Some scholars suggest that the Supreme Court is more likely to grant review of a case to resolve a circuit split than for any other reason.
Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp., 460 U.S. 1 (1983), commonly cited as Moses Cone or Cone Hospital, is a United States Supreme Court decision concerning civil procedure, specifically the abstention doctrine, as it applies to enforcing an arbitration clause in a diversity case. By a 6–3 margin, the justices resolved a complicated construction dispute by ruling that a North Carolina hospital had to arbitrate a claim against the Alabama-based company it had hired to build a new wing, even though it meant that it could not consolidate it with ongoing litigation it had brought in state court against the contractor and architect.
In some jurisdictions, a petition for review is a formal request for an appellate tribunal to review the decision of a lower court or administrative body. If a jurisdiction utilizes petitions for review, then parties seeking appellate review of their case may submit a formal petition for review to an appropriate court. In United States federal courts, the term "petition for review" is also used to describe petitions that seek review of federal agency actions.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down fourteen per curiam opinions during its 2020 term, which began October 5, 2020 and concluded October 3, 2021.
Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365 (1986), was a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that clarified the relationship of the right to effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment to other constitutional rights in criminal procedure. In this case, evidence against the defendant was probably seized illegally, violating the Fourth Amendment, but he lost the chance to argue that point due to his lawyer's ineffectiveness. The prosecution argued that the defendant's attempt to make a Sixth Amendment argument via a habeas corpus petition was really a way to sneak his Fourth Amendment argument in through the back door. The Court unanimously disagreed, and held that the Fourth Amendment issue and the Sixth Amendment issue represented different constitutional values, and had different requirements for prevailing in court, and therefore were to be treated separately by rules of procedure. Therefore, the habeas corpus petition could go forward. In its opinion, the Court also gave guidance on how to apply its decisions in Stone v. Powell and Strickland v. Washington.
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